Well, good afternoon, everyone.
This is my fourth CERAWeek as Secretary of Energy. And for those of you who are regulars, I know that we have seen quite a lot together over the past three years—from global conflict roiling oil and fuel markets to historic climate and clean energy legislation.
Through it all, two truths have remained clear.
First, the world will need secure supplies of both traditional and new energy for the foreseeable future.
And second….
[Applause]
That’s one that everybody can applaud in this room!
And second, the global economy is on a path toward repowering itself on clean energy.
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The other half of the room! [Laughs]
And these truths are not in conflict.
The momentum of the clean energy transition is undeniable.
Even as we are the largest producer of oil and gas in the world and the largest exporter of LNG in the world…
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…the LNG guys!
[Laughter]
…the expansion of America’s energy dominance to clean energy is striking.
Let’s just review the data.Just the facts.
Globally, clean energy investment has overtaken fossil fuel investment every year since 2016, according to the IEA, which estimates that today, clean investment is about 65% higher globally than investment in fossil fuels.
In the U.S., clean energy investment has tripled since 2018.
EV sales in the U.S. have quadrupled over the past three years. Almost one in ten cars sold here is electric, and globally, one of every five cars sold is electric.
This year, for the first time in American history, we expect energy from wind and solar in the U.S. to outpace coal generation.
And by 2030, our modelers expect our electric grid will run on 80% clean energy.On the path to get to 100% clean electricity by 2035.
Most companies who are doing the investments in clean energy are not making these choices out of charity, or because they’re “nice to have.”
They’re doing it because their bottom lines demand it—goosed, by the way, byincredible tax credits. More on that in a second.
So we are in the middle of this historic transition.
But as I said last year, we have to manage this transition and we have to lead it.
We have to keep the lights on and we have to continue to invest in clean.
When Putin’s war disrupted global energy supplies, we kept our refiners and the market supplied with drawdowns from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
And I want to say a word about this, because folks in this room worked hand-in-glove with my team, evaluating regional inventories, assessing supply risks and options.
Now, DOE has been executing a replenishment strategy for the SPR.
We’ve accelerated, for example, exchange returns; we’ve secured more than 30 million barrels in repurchases; we’ve maintained another 140 million barrels by taking congressionally mandated sales off the books. And we’ve ensured that we are ready to respond to future disruptions.
By the end of this year, we’ll essentially be back to where we would have been, absent the sales.
And we’ve done all this at a price that’s good for taxpayers.
And we’ve shown that while we can maintain energy security, we can also react responsibly to changing market realities.
So much has changed.
Recently, some of you might have heard that DOE initiated a temporary pause on LNG exports, in order for our DOE labs to conduct a data-based assessment of what further expansions of U.S. exports mean for our climate, for global energy, for national and global security—our allies— and for domestic prices.
And I’ll just say I suspect that Dan Yergin may have a question or two about this in our conversation.
But the bottom line is that we have seen how government and the energy industry can work together to manage a crisis and to manage change.
But our work together really has to extend beyond crisis management.
Because the soonerthat we acknowledge this transition for what it is—an undeniable, inevitable, and necessary realignment of the world’s energy system—the sooner we can capitalize on this incredible opportunity.
That is the vision behind President Biden’s industrial strategy for clean energy. As we continue to say: This transition, this investment in clean, is private sector-led, government-enabled.
So the President’s laws — the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act —that combination of three bills [has] made the United States irresistible for clean energy investment.
We are now able to go head-to-head with our economic competitors. We’re no longer standing idly by and watching factories leave this country. We are seeing unprecedented investment in manufacturing and clean energy technologies.
600 factories to build clean energy products announced since the passage of the President’s Invest in America agenda. Amazing. So far!
600 communities, in every pocket of America, seeing economic revitalization. So far!
Over $200 billion in announced private-sector clean energy investments in America. So far!
And many of you are taking advantage of those irresistible tax credits.
Good. Good!
I hope more of you see that it serves your bottom line to diversify and invest in this market.
And these incentives, these public-private partnerships, have contributed to the creation of nearly 15 million jobs in the past three years. Can I just say, more than ANY president in ANY term in American history has overseen that kind of job creation. More than any president.
This clean industrial revolution has also contributed to the longest stretch of unemployment under 4% in 50 years. The lowest Black unemployment on record. The lowest Latino unemployment on record.
Policy works. Who knew?
The President–
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You can applaud that! You want to have low unemployment, except for when you’re hiring a lot of people, I know. But it’s good!
The President’s industrial strategy is also focused on next-gen solutions. So let’s just take one example that many of you are aware of, and participating in, which is clean hydrogen.
Not so long ago, really, clean hydrogen at scale was a distant possibility, something that just energy nerds got excited about.
But today, we—the United States—is leading all nations in our clean hydrogen strategy.
Our $8 billion investment in seven Hydrogen Hubs across the country is enabling companies to do everything from production to transport to offtake. Each regional Hub is essentially its own ecosystem, helping to address specific obstacles to scaling up the hydrogen market.
We’re also providing companies with an early demand signal. We’re bringing down costs through innovation. We’re ensuring that investments benefit the communities where they’re located. We’re creating tens of thousands of durable, good-paying energy jobs with these Hydrogen Hubs.
And it doesn’t stop there.
These next-gen technologies. We are making transformative investments in everything from advanced nuclear, to carbon management, to monitoring methane emissions, to EVs, to batteries, to advanced solar and wind and water technologies, to building solutions, to biofuels, to geothermal and more.
Today, I’m going to make another announcement.
So, to continue the drumbeat—I’m going to actually make two announcements.
First, last[year] at CERAweek,for those of you here, I unveiledthe Department of Energy’s Pathways to Commercial Liftoff—which is these first-of-a-kind reports that analyze the barriers that are holding back large-scale deployment of key energy technologies, like clean hydrogen, or carbon dioxide removal, or virtual power plants, or long duration energy storage, et cetera. .
So these Liftoff Reports help investors understand how various technologies can reach full-scale commercial adoption. We developthese Liftoff Reports through a combination of modeling and hundreds and hundreds of interviews with people across the whole investment lifecycle—from early-stage capital to commercial banks and institutional investors.
So today, I am delighted to announce that we are publishing our next Liftoff Report. This one—my favorite!—for geothermal energy.
Now, many of you have heard me say…
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Yay! Geothermal!
That was more than the applause that geothermal got last year, so I take that as a positive sign.
[Laughter]
Many of you have heard me say this before: geothermal hassuch ENORMOUS potential. If we can capture the “heat beneath our feet,” it can be the clean, reliable,base-load scalable power for everybody from industries to households.
And geothermal, of course, uses all of the skills and infrastructure of traditional oil and gas drilling.
So our Liftoff Report underscores that the oil and gas industry is incredibly well-positioned to lead in geothermal.And by the way, key barriershave already been taken out of the way. For example,all federal oil and gas leases can be converted to geothermal leases without having to go through anypermitting review.
Come on!
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Many of you can repurpose your permits anduse your existing workforce, literally today, to build new geothermal projects.
Then on top of that, recent demonstrations—both at DOE and in the private sector—are driving rapid cost reductions in geothermal, on the order of 50 percentreduction inthe past two years!Come on!
At scale, this market is significant: We're talking about at least—at least—a $250 billion investment opportunity tomeet the goal that we have of 90 gigawatts of capacity by 2050.
By the way,the report, you might be interested, is atliftoff.energy.gov.
Now, the amazing thing about empowering industry to invest in clean technologies is that success builds upon success, and growth builds upon growth.
But of course, injustice can also build upon injustice.
So, a core part of President Biden’s industrial strategy is reversing the energy economy’s long history of negatively impacting the poorest, most vulnerable Americans. These are hard truths, decisions often made by people who came before us. But here we are.
Not far from here, in Louisiana’s River Parishes, as many of you know, is Cancer Alley.Families who had been there first find themselves over the backyard fence to refineries and oil drums and flare stacks, and with increased rates of cancer and asthma and other illnesses.
You would not want your family to live a stone’s throw away from a refinery.
You would not want your children to breathe in those toxins on a daily basis.
You would not.
Now, the President’s strategy prioritizes repairing these harms. Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but in this clean energy investment space, it is the only way to make sure that the clean energy projects actually succeed.
Research has shown that a lack of engagement with the local community is a huge contributor to project failure—it’s a factor in almost 30% of failed projects.
When people are part of deciding their future, the path for siting and permitting and growing these projects is going to result in fewer lawsuits,. It’s going to result in less friction and better results.
So this administration’s laws that were passed—the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, et cetera—they offer these extra incentives to locate clean energy projects in disadvantaged communities, which is great.
These are stacked incentives. And they are working. Since the bills were passed, there is twice as much investment in disadvantaged communities for these clean energy projects than in other areas of the country.
So that lure is happening, through these incentives.
And we also are requiring companies that are seeking DOE funding to create Community Benefits Plans, to show how their investments are going benefit local workers and local residents.
Still, too often, those who suffer from environmental injustice don’t get a say in crafting the solutions to it.
So today, my second announcement is this: The Department of Energy is creating a new structure to empower communities to build their energy future.
It’s called the Regional Energy Democracy Initiative, or REDI. [It’s] gonna bring together companies, and community groups, and academic institutions, and philanthropy to weave equity and justice into DOE-funded clean energy projects.
These structures will provide capacity building, technical assistance to help communities match their most pressing needs with the biggest opportunities…to design andto implement Community Benefits Plans…in short,really to have a say in how the historic clean energy investments in their backyardsare going to benefit their people.
And we’re starting with a pilot program right here in the Gulf South.
Across Texas and Louisiana, DOE currently has plans to award over $8 billion to carbon reduction and clean energy infrastructure projects. So we look forward to the…
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Yes! I hope you’re applauding the whole concept. We look forward to the results of this pilot, and we’ll learn as we go.
All right.
This administration—I hope you’re feeling and seeing—is pursuing a holistic, durable energy strategy.
Ultimately, we have two clear goals: First, meet the needs of today, keep the lights on. And second, move quickly and intentionally toward the realities of tomorrow.
As I know you’ve heard throughout the conference, achieving these goals up to now has largely been a question of policy.
But right now, it’s also a question of will.
I know there are some, maybe in this room, who would prefer to wait and see, or to maybe push the burden of tackling climate change onto others. No one in this room.
But let’s be clear:
Consumers are calling for change.
Communities are calling for change.
Investors are calling for change.
We in this room have the power to manage this transition responsibly and with urgency.
We in this room have the power to provide opportunity for investors and communities and workers.
We in this room have the power to cause your ROI to soar and to heal our planet.
You know, when you’re in the middle of history, sometimes it can be hard to tell, because you’re in the middle of it.
But make no mistake—what we are witnessing now, what we are participating in, is historic. You are going to be able to tell your grandchildren that you were in the room where it happened.
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime challenge and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
And fortune tends to favor those who treat those two things as one and the same.
Thank you. It is the honor of a lifetime to shape this moment in history with you.
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